For everyone who left Erilea and never fully came back.
Throne of Glass did something specific to your brain. Celaena Sardothien walked into that castle and rewired your expectations for what a fantasy heroine could be. She's an assassin who reads books in the bath. She's petty and powerful and broken and brilliant. And the world Sarah J. Maas built around her kept getting bigger and more devastating with every book until Kingdom of Ash left you emotionally wrecked on your couch at 3 AM.
Finding books that match that energy is hard. A lot of recommendations miss the point. They see 'female protagonist + fantasy setting' and call it a day. That's not what makes TOG work. It's the combination: a heroine who earns her power through suffering and stubbornness, romance that builds across books and shifts in ways you don't expect, a found family that would burn the world for each other, and stakes that feel genuinely catastrophic. You need books that understand all of those elements.
These fifteen do. Some nail the warrior heroine. Some nail the slow-burn romance. Some nail the found family or the escalating world-building. A few manage most of them at once. Read through the sections below and find your next series to devour.
Celaena isn't just tough. She's complicated. She kills people and then cries about her dog. She's vain about her appearance while covered in blood. That specific combination of lethal competence and emotional messiness is rare, and these books get closest to it.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir puts you in a military empire where Laia is a slave and Elias is a soldier who doesn't want to fight. The brutality here is real. Tahir doesn't shy away from what oppression looks like, and Laia's growth from terrified girl to someone willing to risk everything mirrors Celaena's arc across the TOG series. The romance builds under pressure, which is the only way it works in a setting this violent. Four books, all of them escalating, all of them worth it.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang is darker than TOG. Significantly darker. Rin is a war orphan who tests into a military academy, discovers she has shamanic powers, and then watches her country get invaded. This is inspired by Chinese history and it doesn't pull punches. If you loved the parts of TOG where Celaena stopped being charming and became something terrifying, Kuang writes that transformation better than almost anyone.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore features Katsa, who has been used as a weapon since childhood. Her Grace (a supernatural talent) is killing, and the story follows her figuring out that she's more than what she was made to be. The romance with Po is one of the best in YA fantasy because it's genuinely equal. Neither character needs the other to survive. They choose each other, which is always more interesting. And it's a standalone, so you get the full arc in one book.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros puts Violet in a dragon-rider war college where students die regularly. She's physically smaller than everyone else, which means she has to be smarter and more stubborn. Sound familiar? The Celaena energy is strong here. The enemies-to-lovers romance with Xaden is intense, the dragons have actual personalities, and the found family that forms under pressure is one of the best in recent romantasy.
Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole gives you Diem, a healer forced into a world of immortal politics where her very existence threatens the power structure. She's got that same Celaena stubbornness, the refusal to stay quiet when smart people would shut up. The series just got picked up by Hulu, and Book 4 drops in September. Perfect time to start.
A brutal military empire and a rebellion clash in this epic fantasy. Laia, a spy infiltrating the empire, and Elias, a soldier with secret doubts, find themselves on opposite sides as their connection deepens. Packed with political intrigue, magic, and a love story that drives the stakes ever higher.
A military fantasy inspired by Chinese history follows a shamanic soldier with destructive power in a war that consumes everything. She can ignite fire and destruction on a massive scale, but each use demands a price. Her choices will reshape nations and haunt her forever.
Katsa possesses a supernatural fighting ability called a grace, making her the most skilled warrior in the kingdom. When she discovers the grace is her own to command, not her uncle's, everything changes. She must use her power to uncover a dangerous conspiracy.
Violet Sorrengail was meant to become a scribe until her commanding general mother orders her to enter the dragon rider academy. She must survive deadly competition and paranormal creatures while uncovering dangerous secrets. As her world expands, so does her capacity for power and love.
Enemies transform into lovers as they move through political fantasy and revolution across a world on fire. Each is bound to a side of an escalating conflict that threatens to consume everything. Slow-burn passion ignites as they discover their power is strongest together.
TOG's romantic arcs are complicated. Celaena's relationships shift across the series, and Maas doesn't make it simple. The early books set up one dynamic. The later books tear it apart and rebuild something different. That willingness to let romance evolve rather than lock it in from page one is what makes the love stories in TOG hit harder than most.
A Court of Thorns and Roses is the obvious recommendation and it's obvious for a reason. Same author, same instinct for building romance across multiple books, same willingness to let the heroine outgrow her first love interest. ACOTAR starts slow and explodes in book two. If you haven't read it after TOG, you're leaving the best follow-up on the table.
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout builds a central romance that starts with forbidden attraction and detonates into something much bigger. Poppy is sheltered, then she isn't. The romance with Hawke/Casteel has the same slow-burn energy as Celaena's later relationships, and Armentrout writes tension between characters who are physically attracted but can't trust each other.
Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco pairs a witch with a demon prince, and the banter is sharp enough to draw blood. Emilia and Wrath's dynamic has echoes of Celaena and Rowan in the middle TOG books, where the characters are adversarial and attracted in equal measure and the power balance keeps shifting. Three books in, the series has earned its romance.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black writes enemies-to-lovers with Jude and Cardan in a way that feels genuinely dangerous. These characters don't like each other, and the attraction is tangled up in survival. It's YA so the spice is lower, but the emotional tension is on par with anything in TOG. The political maneuvering between them, where every kiss could be a power play, is riveting.
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross takes a completely different approach. Two rival journalists falling for each other through letters during a war. No fae courts, no assassins. Just two people writing to each other with increasing vulnerability. If the Celaena-Chaol early chapters hit you in the chest, this will too. Ross writes romance that builds on words rather than proximity, and it works brilliantly.
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature demands blood as payment. Imprisoned in a magical faerie prison with the immortal warrior Rhysand, Feyre discovers a curse far darker than she imagined. Her choices now will determine the fate of both the human and faerie worlds.
Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy's life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. But when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard, enters her life, everything changes. As secrets are revealed and danger closes in, Poppy must decide between duty and desire.
Emilia wants revenge on the witch who cursed her family, but to get it she must make a deal with the Prince of Demons himself. Together they must solve the mystery behind her family's curse, all while resisting a dangerous attraction that neither of them expected. It's dark Italian folklore meets enemies-to-lovers with real teeth.
Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. She'll have to outwit the cruel prince who rules there.
Two rival journalists communicate through anonymous letters to a god, blending passion and politics in a world where divine intervention shapes human fate. As their connection deepens, they discover they're playing with forces beyond their control. What begins as competition becomes something far more dangerous.
Aelin's court. The Thirteen. Manon and Asterin. The TOG found family is the reason people get the tattoos. These characters would die for each other and several of them do. Finding that same gut-punch loyalty in other books is the real quest.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo has the best found family in modern fantasy, full stop. The Dregs are six broken people who become more important to each other than anything else in the world. Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Nina, Matthias, Wylan. Every pair has a unique dynamic. The heist plot drives the action but the relationships drive the emotion. If you cried during Kingdom of Ash, you'll cry during Crooked Kingdom.
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas builds another found family, this time in Crescent City. Bryce's crew of misfits forms around her grief and gradually becomes something worth fighting for. The tone is different from TOG. More urban, more humor, more modern. But the core emotional beat is the same: lonely person finds her people and then has to protect them from forces that want to tear them apart.
The Book of Azrael by Amber Nicole features a found family that forms through shared trauma and impossible circumstances. The loyalty between these characters builds gradually and the payoff is devastating. Darker than TOG in places, but that same fierce protectiveness runs through every relationship.
Air Awakens by Elise Kova puts Vhalla in a magical war alongside soldiers who become her family. The group dynamics develop naturally through shared danger. Kova writes the kind of loyalty that makes you believe these characters would walk through fire for each other, because they literally do.
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon features a romance that grows out of a political marriage, but the real heart of the series is the relationships between women. The friendships and alliances that form around the protagonist mirror the Aelin-Lysandra dynamic that makes TOG special. Female loyalty as a force that reshapes the world.
Kaz Brekker and his crew of dangerous outcasts are offered a heist that could make them all rich, if they survive it. In a city full of enemies and a fortress that's never been breached, success seems impossible. But Kaz's crew never plays by the rules.
A paranormal investigator and a warrior hunt a killer in a world where fae, vampires, and humans collide in uneasy peace. They uncover a conspiracy that reaches into the highest powers of their world. Their investigation becomes personal as they discover how deep the corruption runs.
BookTok sensation featuring morally gray characters, angel and demon lore, and dark paranormal romance. Perfect if you want gods, monsters, and unhinged MMCs.
Vhalla Yarl is a library apprentice who discovers she has rare wind magic and gets drafted into the war effort. The romance with Prince Aldrik is a textbook slow burn that pays off beautifully. It reads like a comfort fantasy with real stakes, and the magic system based on elemental affinities is satisfying without being overcomplicated.
Talasyn is a soldier with rare light magic fighting against the Night Empire that conquered her homeland. When she is forced into a political marriage with Alaric, the enemy prince who wields shadow magic, their powers create a volatile reaction neither of them understands. Set in a Southeast Asian-inspired world of airships and elemental warfare, this is enemies-to-lovers at its most combustible. The banter is sharp, the tension electric, and the political scheming keeps things moving between the sparks.
Our spice guide explains exactly what each heat level means.
Read the Spice GuideYou finished ACOTAR. Now what?
Reading GuideDragons. Danger. Romance. More of all three.
Reading GuideFae courts, epic romance, and unforgettable worlds
Be the first to share your thoughts.
Published April 2026 by The Fae Shelf editorial team. Updated regularly with new releases and community feedback.